Essential guide to writing part 28

PUNCTUATION course, the letters). Contractions are common in speech and are permissible in informal writing, though they should be avoided in a formal style. They are most likely with auxiliary verbs and negative words, and in all cases an apostrophe should be placed in the position of the deleted sound or letter: He'll go. = He will go. We would've gone. = We would have gone. They won't go. They will not go. Notice that in the last example several sounds have dropped, but only one apostrophe is used. The contracted form of the auxiliary have, incidentally, sounds exactly like the unstressed of. Because of this confu- sion such constructions as / could of gone are sometimes seen. That is not in accordance with formal usage and should be avoided. The proper form is: / could've gone. The Apostrophe to Mark Elision Elision is dropping a sound from a word. This often occurs in rapid speech going) and was sometimes done in older poetry (e'en for even, ne'er for never), though rarely in modern verse. An apostrophe signals when a sound is elided. Elision is rarely necessary in composition. The Apostrophe with the Plural Forms of Letters When letters and numerals are used in the plural, they gen- erally simply add Learn your ABCs. The were a period of great change. There are, however, three exceptions: (1) capital letters in abbreviations with periods, (2) capital letters that might look For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org THE OTHER MARKS confusing with a simple -s plural, and (3) lowercase letters used as nouns: The university graduated twenty M.A.'s. He makes his A's in an unusual way. Mind your p's and q's. The Quotation Mark Quotation marks are used with (1) direct quotations, (2) cer- tain titles, and (3) words given a special sense. Quote marks have two forms: double ") and single (' .'). Most American writers prefer double quotes, switching to single should they need to mark a quote within a quote. British writers are more likely to begin with single quotes, switching, if necessary, to double. Whether single or double, the quote at the beginning is called an opening quotation mark; the one at the end, a closing. Quotation Marks with Direct Quotations A direct quotation consists of the words actually spoken or written by someone other than the writer. It is distinct from an indirect quotation, which reports the substance of what was said or written but changes the words to fit the often altering pronouns and verbs: DIRECT She said, "We are not going." INDIRECT She said that they were not going. Direct quotations must be signaled by quote marks; indi- rect quotations must not be. Introducing a Quotation In introducing a quotation the subject and verb of address may precede, follow, or intrude into the quoted matter. The three possibilities are punctuated like this: For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org PUNCTUATION She said, "We are not going." "We are not going," she said. "We," she said, "are not going." Notice that the first word of the quotation is capitalized, but that when a quotation is in the third exam- opening word of the continuation is not capitalized (unless, of course, it happens to be a proper noun or adjective or the beginning word of a new sentence). Written quotations may be preceded by a comma, or, more formally, by a colon: Professor Brown writes: "By themselves statistics are rarely enough; they require careful interpretation." Often written quotations are worked into the text in a smoother manner by an introductory that. The that requires no stop since it turns the quotation into a noun clause acting as the direct object of the verb; and the first word of the quotation is not capitalized: Professor Jones writes that "by themselves statistics are rarely enough; they require careful interpretation." If a quotation is extensive and involves more than one par- agraph, it is customary to repeat the opening quote marks at the beginning of each new paragraph. Closing quotes are used only at the end of the final paragraph. However, extended written quotations are more com- monly indented, in which case quote marks are not needed. Quotation Marks in Relation to Stops With opening quote marks, a comma, a colon, or any other stop always precedes the quotation mark. With closing quotes, however, the matter is more compli- cated. In American usage, commas and periods always come inside a final quote mark; semicolons and colons, outside. For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org THE OTHER MARKS This rule applies regardless of whether the stop in question is part of the quotation or not: She said, "We are not going." She said, "We are not going," and they didn't. She said, "We are not going"; they didn't. She said, "We are not going": why, wonder? In the case of question marks and exclamation points, placement depends on whether the stop applies only to the quotation, only to the sentence containing the quotation, or to both. When the quotation is a question (or exclamation) and the enclosing sentence is a declarative statement, the query (or exclamation point) comes inside the final quote mark: She asked, "Are we going?" When the quotation is a statement and the enclosing sen- tence a question, the query is placed outside: Did she say, "We are going"? When, finally, both quotation and sentence are questions, the query is inside the quote mark, where it does double duty: Did she ask, "Are we going?" Notice that whether it goes inside or outside the closing quotation, the query (or exclamation point) serves as the end stop; no period is necessary. > Quotation Marks with Titles Some titles of literary works are italicized (in typescript, un- derlined), others are placed in quote marks. The basic consid- eration is whether the work was published or presented For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org PUNCTUATION separately or rather as part of something larger (for example, a magazine or collection). In the case the title is italicized; in the second, set within quotes. In practical terms, this means that the titles of books, plays, and long poems, such as the are italicized, while the titles of short stories, short po- ems, essays, articles in magazines or other periodicals, and the titles of chapters or sections within a book are quoted: Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms has been made into a movie. A Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's so-called problem comedies. "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is a shocking short story. In Vanity Fair Thackeray calls one chapter "How to Live on Nothing a Year." The finest carpe diem poem in English is Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress." The titles of movies are italicized, those of television and radio shows are quoted: Robin and Marian is an unusual and interesting film treatment of the Robin Hood story. "Truth or Consequences" was popular both on radio and on television. Notice that the first word of a title is always capitalized. So are the last word and all intervening words except articles (a, an, the), short prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions. Quotation Marks to Signify Special Meaning Limited or Technical Meaning Sometimes a common word must be used in a special sense that applies only within a limited context. To make the lim- itation clear, it helps to put the word in quotes: For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org THE OTHER MARKS Some years later Eton became the first public in the sense that students were accepted from everywhere, not merely from the neighborhood. Morris Bishop Irony Irony is using a word in a sense very different opposite conventional meaning. Effective irony de- pends on the reader's recognizing the writer's intent. Inten- tion should be clear from the context. Even so, a signal is sometimes advisable. In speech this is given by intonation, as when we speak the word brave in a scornful way to mean "cowardly." In writing, the signal may be supplied by quo- tation marks: The Indians were therefore pushed back behind ever-retreating frontiers. "Permanent" boundaries were established between the United States and the Indians, tribes were moved out of the United States and established beyond those boundaries. Again and again the boundaries were violated by the whites. James Oliver Robertson Citation Terms A citation term is a word used to refer to itself rather than to the object or concept or feeling it conventionally designates. Usually such terms are italicized, but sometimes they are quoted. (They should never be treated both ways.) The fol- lowing pair of sentences illustrate the difference between the same word used first in its conventional sense and second as a citation term: A horse grazed in the meadow. "Horse" is a citation term. Definitions When a word is defined, its meaning is sometimes put in quotes, the word itself being italicized: For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org PUNCTUATION Other-directed means "accepting and living by the standards of the social group to which one belongs or aspires." Slang and Colloquialisms It is not necessary to place quotation marks around slang or colloquial expressions, apologizing for them, so to speak. If the term says exactly what you want to say, no apology is needed; if it does not, no apology will help. The Hyphen The hyphen has two principal functions. It marks the syllabic division of a word between lines, and it also separates the elements of some compound words. The Hyphen to Indicate Division of a Word When separating a word between lines, you should always place the hyphen at the end of the upper line, never at the beginning of the new line. The word supper, for example, must be divided: sup- NOT sup per -per Words can be divided only between syllables. Most of us have only a hazy idea of the syllabication of many words, and it is best to consult a dictionary when you must split a word. \> The Hyphen with Compounds In certain compounds (two or more words treated as one) the hyphen separates the individual words. English does not treat compounds with much consistency. Some are printed as sep- arate words (contact lens, drawing room, milk shake); some as single terms footlight, midships); and still others are hyphenated (gun-shy, photo-offset). Some compounds are For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org THE OTHER MARKS treated differently by different writers; you cannot tell how any particular compound is conventionally written without consulting a dictionary or observing how publishers print it. The examples we just saw are all conventional compound words. Another kind exists called the nonce compound. This is a construction, usually a modifier, made up for a specific occasion and not existing as a standard idiom. In the following sentence, the first compound is conventional; the other two are nonce expressions: Old-fashioned, marriage Aldridge Nonce compounds are always hyphenated. Other Functions of the Hyphen Hyphens, finally, have several special applications. When a word is spelled out in composition, the pauses which in speech would separate the letters are signaled by hyphens: Affect is spelled a-f-f-e-c-t. If it is necessary to cite inflectional endings or prefixes, they are preceded (or followed) by a hyphen. No space is left be- tween the hyphen and the first or last letter of the cited term: The regular sign of the plural in English is -s. and are common prefixes, while -ence is a frequent suffix. When several different words are understood to be com- monly combined with the same final element to form com- pound words, hyphens are placed after each of the initial elements: The lemon groves are sunken, down a three- or four-foot retaining wall. . . . Joan Didion For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org PUNCTUATION Parentheses > To Enclose Parenthetical Matter Parenthetical matter is a word or construction (which may or may not be grammatically related to the rest of the sentence) sufficiently remote in relevance to require a stronger pause than a comma would supply: Even for those who can do their work in bed (like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooner of whales), it is obvious that the indul- gence must be very Occasional. G. K. Chesterton Parenthetical remarks of this may also be punctuated with be a source of interest and va- riety as well as of necessary information. Moreover, such in- trusions loosen the rhythm of a sentence, suggesting more interesting patterns of speech. The effectiveness of parenthet- ical remarks, however, depends on their scarcity. Using one in every other sentence costs you whatever advantage the de- vice had, and overused parentheses become an irritating mannerism. When a parenthetical remark comes inside a sentence, any stop that follows it must be set outside the closing parenthesis: In the last act of the play (or so it seems to me, for know there can be differences on this point), Hamlet accepts his world and we discover a different man. Maynard Mack When a parenthetical remark closes a sentence, the is also placed outside: say only that a considerable number of [TV] set-owners are far from being entirely satisfied (those who are willing to pay and those who hardly ever use their sets). Gilbert Seldes However, if an entirely separate sentence is placed within quotes, the period which closes it (or the query or exclama- tion) must go inside: For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org THE OTHER MARKS Many of winter's plants are partial to the cleared sides of roads. (The is what most winter foods not subject to the same kind of road pollution as are the leaves.) Ruth Parentheses to Enclose Numbers or Letters Marking a Series When numbers or letters introduce the items in a list they should be put within parentheses to differentiate them from the text: We must do three things: study the route thoroughly, (2) pur- chase supplies and equipment, and (3) hire a reliable guide. Brackets Brackets (which look like this: [ ]) are used in composition to enclose within a quotation any words that are not a part of it. Sometimes a writer needs to explain or comment on some- thing in the quotation. The sample sentence by Gilbert Seldes in the section on parentheses contains such editorial addition set within brackets. In the following passage the writer adds a comment within the words spoken by a guide conducting tourists around Jerusalem: "This area," he would say as he showed us one of the Victorian monstrosities, "this area [it was one of his favorite words] is very rich in antiquity." Aldous Huxley Sometimes, too, it is necessary to alter a quotation slightly to it into its grammatical an auxiliary verb or an ending, for instance. Any such addition to the actual quotation must be enclosed in brackets: Johnson writes that "monkeys . [are] held in great esteem by the tribe." For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org [...]... journal articles, short stories, short poems, and also radio and television programs) With newspapers the title is what appears on the masthead, except that it is now customary not to italicize an initial article: the New York Times Names of ships are also italicized, as are the titles of long musical works (symphonies, tone poems, operas; songs and shorter compositions are referred to in quotes) O Underline... also used in dialogue to indicate doubt, indecision, weariness, and so on In the following sentence, for example, the ellipsis signals not an omission of any words but the trailing off of the voice, suggesting the speaker's uncertainty: She sighed and answered, "I really don't k n o w " Sometimes too a writer will use an ellipsis to imply a conclusion which readers are expected to infer for themselves:... I It is considered simple honesty to use an ellipsis to acknowledge that you have omitted something from a passage you are quoting Of course, the omission must not change the substance of what the other writer said, and if you do alter his or her meaning, the use of an ellipsis will not save you from a charge of dishonesty The same caution applies to adding explanatory matter within brackets: it must... been fully assimilated into English should be italicized: de trop dolce vita Schadenfreude (French: "unwanted, in the way") (Italian: "life that is sweet, easy, enjoyable") (German: "malicious joy at the misfortunes of others") Because English has always been quick to borrow words from other languages and equally quick to anglicize their pronunciation, it is often difficult to tell whether an imported... air: boutique, for instance, or detente Editors differ on how to treat such terms If they are not listed in a standard dictionary, it is never wrong to underline them t> Underline Citation Terms Words used in self-reference are called citation terms and are usually underlined (less commonly, placed in quotes) In the following pair of sentences, the infinitive to run is a citation term in the first, but... is easiest to put these in with pencil afterwards.) Underlining Underlining is the compositional equivalent to italic type There are several reasons for underlining a word or phrase > Underline Titles The titles of newspapers, magazines and other periodicals, books, plays, films, paintings, and long poems are underlined Titles of works which were not published separately, but rather as part of something... attention to key words, but also of suggesting an actual voice talking to us: The cause of pornography is not the same as the cause of free speech There is a difference Barbara Tuchman For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org 434 PUNCTUATION The church was, in sum, more than the patron of medieval culture; it was medieval Culture Morris Bishop Capitalization When to use capital... follows a stop in the title (such as a colon or comma), it is usually treated as a second "first" word and capitalized: Charles Dickens, The Last of the Great Men Remember that the titles of works published or presented separately (books, magazines, plays, long poems, films) are italicized (underlined), while those published as part of something larger are set in quotes (articles, short stories, most... Diacritics A diacritic is a mark placed above, below, or through a letter in order to indicate a special pronunciation Diacritics are employed because the number of letters in any language is usually fewer than the number of significantly different sounds Diacritical marks thus supplement the alphabet, enabling a single letter to do the work of two English, while it certainly has more sounds than letters,... occasionally seen in words like naive or cooperate (meaning that the vowel is to be pronounced as a separate syllable) But diacritical marks are common in some other languages—the accents grave and acute and the cedilla of French, (" J; the umlaut of German ("); or the tilde of Spanish (~) When you use a foreign word not yet assimilated into English, For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org . Sometimes, too, it is necessary to alter a quotation slightly to it into its grammatical an auxiliary verb or an ending, for instance. Any such addition to the. quotations are worked into the text in a smoother manner by an introductory that. The that requires no stop since it turns the quotation into a noun clause acting